Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

“The more things change, the more they stay the same”. Professor Georges Siotis, former member of the Task Force for Greece, writes on the poor track record on reforms and presents three examples of “win-win” reforms that never came to fruition.

He writes: There is no panacea to the Greek drama, but a route that would have been worth exploring is to identify reform areas that are “win-win” and that could deliver positive results over a relatively short time span. … To be “win-win”, a reform must be to the liking of the Principal and yield a positive cost benefit ratio for the Agent. In practice, the latter implies focusing on projects that involve few, if any, costs to local constituencies or vested interests. If these conditions are met, implementation could be closer to incentive compatibility. There are such reforms, but that have been partially (and often reluctantly) implemented, or not at all. I limit myself to mention three of them: the introduction of a well targeted Guaranteed Minimum Income (GMI), the development of a fully fledged export strategy, and cost effective, incentive compatible ways to close the VAT gap in the form of a Portugal like “VAT lottery”.